"Moonless Darkness Stands Between"
by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Moonless darkness stands between.
Past, the Past, no more be seen!
But the Bethlehem-star may lead me
To the sight of Him Who freed me
From the self that I have been.
Make me pure, Lord: Thou art holy;
Make me meek, Lord: Thou wert lowly;
Now beginning, and alway:
Now begin, on Christmas day.
Gerard Manley Hopkins
(1844 – 1889)
- Was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest
- Became famous among the leading Victorian poets
- Was a daring innovator in a period of largely traditional verse
Sprung Rhythm
- Structured around feet with a variable number of syllables
- Generally between one and four syllables per foot
- Stress always falling on the first syllable in a foot
- No regular meter
Essentially his technique was all about compression: sprung rhythm squeezes out weak or 'slack' syllables and condenses the strong stresses, one to each foot.
- Stephen Fry
Stress is the life of it
- Hopkins (writing to friend Robert Bridges )
Make me pure, Lord: Thou art holy;
Make me meek, Lord: Thou wert lowly;
- Only one weak syllable on these lines
- Makes the words stronger. It sounds like the speaker really means it.
Moonless darkness stands between.
Past, the Past, no more be seen!
- Author describes a point in his life. A cross roads.
- The "moonless darkness" is a complete break. A new beginning.
- Hopkins went through such a crossroads when he converted to Catholicism
But the Bethlehem-star may lead me
To the sight of Him Who freed me
From the self that I have been.
- He has left the past behind—put off the old self—and has set his life's direction to something new: Bethlehem star.
- He is forming his character around Christ, abandoning "the self that I have been"
Make me pure, Lord: Thou art holy;
Make me meek, Lord: Thou wert lowly;Now beginning, and alway:
Now begin, on Christmas day.
- He realizes that this means he will have to change, through Christ working in him.
- He must become pure as He was holy, Meek as He was lowly.
- How appropriate that this process should begin now and continuing for all eternity, the advent of Christ, the new Adam.